Finding Peace
by dreamer one
Summary: In this sequel to Finding Truth and Finding Faith, the O’Neills and their son, Johnny, attend graduation ceremonies. All three reflect on the struggles of years past and the surprising contribution of Johnny O’Neill.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story is the long promised sequel to Finding Faith. It's not exactly as I'd originally envisioned it, but I like the story my muse has brought to mind. It begins with Johnny, aged 24 and a graduation. Unlike the earlier installments of this series, it incorporates a significant piece of Stargate's science fiction canon. It should run four chapters, maybe five and is my tribute to Mother's Day, Father's Day and graduation season, all rolled into one.

I hope you like the story.

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* * *

Finding Peace**

Chapter One: An Unlikely Event

"Hey, Dad, have you seen my suit jacket?"

The voice now floating up the stairs was strong and resonant. _My son's voice_, Jack thought, smiling to himself. It was a good commanding voice, the voice of a good man who by rights could be in command of an empire by now. But John had chosen a different path. And it suited him.

"Your jacket's in my closet," Jack called down the stairs. Within seconds, John Jr. was bounding up the stairs two at a time, meeting his father at the top.

"Thanks Dad," he said. Even now Jack noted the once frail boy wasn't winded. After all these years, John's robust health was still a source of joy and relief for his father.

Jack smirked and shook his head.

"Here you are," he said teasingly, "Doctor Jonathan Charles O'Neill and you're still misplacing your clothes."

"That's hardly fair," John protested halfheartedly. "I don't live here anymore and besides, Mom put my stuff away when I got in last night."

"There you go," Jack pounced. "Your mom's still hanging up your clothes."

John rolled his eyes. _So much like his mother_, Jack thought.

"I'm still hanging up _your_ clothes," was the unexpected rejoinder from the third member of the family. Jack turned to see Sam coming out of the master bedroom. She was holding the offending suit jacket in her hand.

"Here you are Johnny," she said, giving the garment over to the twenty-four-year old. John had come home to Colorado Springs to attend graduation ceremonies today.

"It's a good choice, the jacket," Sam said. "You'll look very professional."

"Thanks, Mom," John said. Happily he returned his mother's smile. A tall, lanky man with sandy brown hair, John had long ago come to terms with the fact his mother would always call him Johnny. A few years back he'd protested how the name sounded too young and childish. Now it was the last thing on his mind. He supposed that meant he was growing up – finally.

"You're welcome," Sam said, reaching out to take him in her arms for a hug. "I'm so proud of you."

Now standing side by side in the upstairs hallway of his childhood home, John's parents both beamed their approval of him. And gratified beyond words, the younger man smiled back at them.

"Alright," John said, breaking the spell, "now you two are embarrassing me."

"What?" Jack demanded innocently. "It isn't every day my son's the commencement speaker at the Academy."

"No big deal, Dad," John protested. "If you keep up like this, I'll have to revoke your complimentary tickets. They're at a premium you know."

"Hey!" Jack exclaimed indignantly.

"Chip off the old block," Sam muttered. She'd always said John sounded like Jack whenever he started to talk back to them.

"Later," John said, grinning pleasantly and starting down the stairs. Then, back over his shoulders. "I have to meet the Dean of Students for breakfast. I'll see you at graduation."

OoOoOo

Jack O'Neill waited impatiently as Sam dressed for the big occasion.

It was beyond his wildest dreams. At least it had been. Years ago, when Johnny was born, he'd wondered if his son would live to see his first birthday, let alone be the youngest commencement speaker in Air Force Academy history.

That first year had been hell. Baby John spent the first three and a half months of his life in the hospital, most of it in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, learning to breathe on his own. Either he or Sam were by the baby's side each and every day, often twenty-four hours a day. He'd taken a furlough from his duties at Homeworld Security back then. Within the year he'd retired for good. Looking back he wouldn't have done it any other way.

When John came home from the hospital, he still needed specialized care. Though able to breathe without the respirator, he needed suctioning to clear secretions and often developed respiratory infections. What's more, within his first few months home, both Jack and Sam began to notice worrisome delays in his motor development.

The doctors had done their best to prepare the O'Neills for the possibility of lasting chronic disabilities as a result of Johnny's extremely premature birth. But knowing it was possible and actually seeing the problem develop, well they were completely different things.

As it turned out, Johnny had spastic cerebral palsy. His left side was weak and both his left arm and leg were plagued by poorly controlled movements which further hampered the young child's developmental efforts. The days that followed were sometimes painful to watch. Johnny struggling to crawl, falling more than expected in his slow, troubled attempts to stand and failing over and over again to take his first steps, it was a tall order for new parents.

Talented physical therapists became frequent visitors to the O'Neill home in those early days. They worked with Johnny daily, doing their best to prevent contractures in his extremities, the tightening of muscle that would further restrict the child's ability to move freely. Jack and Sam learned exercises and strategies to help their son in those hours the therapists were not with them. And as so many parents of children with special needs, they devoted themselves to their child as much as physically possible.

By the age of two, Johnny started to seize. It was frightening, even to parents who'd seen the horrors of intergalactic war. Helpless, flailing, eyes rolling back in his head, all they could do was hold the tiny child as the seemingly endless involuntary movements passed. Thankfully, they always did and their child survived. With the proper medication, the seizures abated.

As the weeks passed, Jack could swear Sam was aging before his eyes. She'd cry herself to sleep many a night, often refusing the comfort he longed to give her. He knew Sam feared for Johnny's future. And as much as Jack hated to admit it, he felt much the same. It wasn't going to be easy. Any way they looked at it, life wouldn't be easy for their son. It didn't mean they loved him any less, but little by little hopes and dreams started to die.

He'd hoped to play ball with his son, much as he had with Charlie. That would never happen. Watching Johnny take his first, long delayed steps, with the aid of braces, Jack realized there were many things this little boy would never do. He remembered, as if it were yesterday the first time he admitted that to Sam. Johnny was three and a half.

"_You know, we're going to need to get him a wheelchair for the trip next week," Jack said._

"_I know," Sam replied. "I ordered it yesterday at the Center. Johnny's excited. He says the stroller's for babies."_

_Jack grinned._

"_Good for him," he said. Then his face dropped and the sadness that always hovered close by came to the surface. "At least he's accepting this. I'm not sure I can say as much for me."_

_Sam stood up and made her way over to Jack. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around him. It was her turn to be strong. _

"_I know," she said. "Seems like everyday there's something else, something else to let go of, an expectation, something we'd dreamed of doing with Johnny. This time it's going to the park. He can't just run along with us. He'll probably never be able to do that."_

_Jack nodded silently against her shoulder._

"_It's not easy," he whispered. "There's so much I wanted to teach him. Baseball, swimming, dancing, flying a plane…"_

"_You'll just have to teach him other things," Sam answered. Pulling back to see Jack's face, she fixed his eyes with her own._

"_Look at me," she all but demanded. "Johnny's bright. He's three years old and he's reading already. There's a lot he can do and we have to focus on those things."_

That's exactly what they'd done. For the next two years they'd focused on the positive, doing their best to minimize and alleviate the negative when possible. It was a long road, but they'd done their best.

And they loved the little boy they'd been given.

Then everything changed.

TBC

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Please review! I'd love to hear what you think, good, bad, suggestions etc. The story is short and outlined, so should be posted soon.


	2. Chapter 2 The Cruelty of Children

A/N: I was glad to see there are still readers interested in "little" Johnny's story. I'm hoping you'll be pleasantly surprised with how this plays out.

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Chapter 2: The Cruelty of Children

As usual, Samantha O'Neill was dressed and ready to go long before her husband. While she waited, she sat quietly, thinking about Johnny. She was so proud of him. His doctorates in neurophysiology and biochemistry were only the beginning. She was proud of the man her son was becoming.

"What do you think he's going to say?" Sam asked absentmindedly.

Doing his best to put the finishing touches on the formal uniform he was wearing for this auspicious occasion, Jack O'Neill turned away from the mirror to face his wife. To this day, Sam had a knack of asking questions that caught him off guard.

"Say about what?" the mostly retired General quipped innocently.

Sam shook her head.

"Don't do that," she said.

"What?"

"Pretend like you're not as excited about this as I am," Sam answered. "Our son is giving the commencement address at the Air Force Academy ... our alma mater."

"Yeah, he is," Jack agreed, "and I'm nervous."

"Really?" Sam questioned sincerely. She'd seen Jack nervous before, but for him to admit it was another story altogether.

"I remember what I was like on my graduation day," he said. "I wasn't listening to any of the speakers. My head was filled with visions of saving the free world as I knew it at the ripe old age of twenty-five or so. There was nothing I couldn't do and nothing those old Generals on stage could tell me I didn't already know."

"Well Johnny's not exactly an old General," Sam observed.

"Exactly," Jack replied. "He's younger than some of the graduating cadets and he's not even in the military. What if they totally ignore him?"

"What if they do?" Sam said. "You ignored your commencement speakers and look where you are today."

"Right," Jack admitted with a roguish grin. "But John has an important message they need to hear."

"And I think they'll listen," Sam soothed. "He's made a name for himself; they know who he is."

Jack nodded thoughtfully.

"I suppose they do," he admitted. "Unless they've been living under a rock these past few years everyone knows how John O'Neill has revolutionized medical care in this country."

"You mean on this planet," Sam corrected.

"You're only saying that because you're his mother," Jack teased.

"I'm saying it because it's true," she protested. Sam paused with more than a little dramatic effect. "Remember how all this started?"

"How could I ever forget?"

_By the time Johnny turned six, he'd been in first grade nearly four months. He excelled in reading and every other academic challenge presented to him at that young age. Because of his intellectual abilities and physical challenges, the O'Neills had chosen a rather exclusive private school for their son, hoping it would meet his special needs. The place boasted success in mainstreaming children with significant physical disabilities. _

_Everything had gone along well enough during preschool and kindergarten. The teachers were wonderfully skilled, understanding and encouraging. At those levels, teachers and young students alike seemed to go out of their way to help Johnny participate in activities as fully as possible. But this year was another story._

_This was the first year Johnny was spending a full day at school. Like most children his age, that in itself was a big adjustment. He missed the safety and security of those extra hours at home with one or both of his parents. But the atmosphere at school had changed as well. As often happens in the best of schools, some of the children began to single out selected classmates for negative attention. Typically this hazing or bullying was directed towards those perceived as weak or different in some way. To make things worse, the teacher this year was new, inexperienced and slow to recognize the situation as it developed._

_It began innocently enough. Children would leave Johnny out of play periods, ignoring him at times, as if he wasn't there. But then they began to laugh and poke fun. _

_Spastic cerebral palsy put Johnny O'Neill at the mercy of sometimes useless extremities, an arm and leg which more times than not would be shaking in a spasm of tonic muscular contraction. To the uninitiated, or the less than understanding, the odd, out of place movements he made were fodder for cruel and unfeeling jokes._

_When it first started, Jack made his way to the principal's office to insist the offending students be reprimanded, even expelled if they didn't cease and desist. _

"_Damn it, Sam," he'd said. "No one has a right to talk to our son like that."_

"_They're children, Jack," Sam reasoned. "We'll help Johnny deal with it."_

"_I used to be just like them," Jack said. "I made fun of kids like Johnny when I was in school."_

_He was furious. Between Sam and the principal, Jack came to see that he might be overreacting. A compromise was reached where the O'Neills would work with Johnny to help him deal with the cruelty and ignorance he'd undoubtedly experience in life and school administrators would address the situation from their end, revisiting the school aged version of sensitivity training with both parents and students. _

_It went on like that. Jack and Sam did their best to help their son come to terms with his medical condition and the attitudes of some of his classmates. Still, more and more often, Sam found Johnny crying after school. Each time he asked her why he couldn't do the things the other children did, or why other children didn't want to play with him, her heart broke a little more. On his sixth birthday, Sam decided her son had suffered enough. _

_Sam had come to school with a beautiful cake and sodas for the class to celebrate his birthday. Jack had been called away to consult at the SGC and hadn't been able to make it. Everything was running smoothly right up to the part where it was time for Johnny to blow out the candles. With a big smile on his face, he'd proudly walked over to the table under his own steam and stood in front of the cake. Leaning over to blow out the candles, he'd taken a big breath and successfully extinguished all six on the first try. But straightening up again was another thing altogether. As he painstakingly pulled himself back to an upright position, his right arm jerked forward, effectively plowing into and decapitating the beautifully decorated layer cake. Chocolate frosting clung to the arm of his white shirt and pieces of cake and decorations flew through the air propelled by the errant arm. _

_Johnny was horrified. It was bad enough he'd ruined the cake his mother had brought. But then his classmates started to laugh._

_At first it was only one or two of the more obnoxious kids, the ones who seemed to torment Johnny for no good reason in the first place. Then, almost spontaneously, the rest of the class started to laugh as well, pointing at Johnny and the wrecked birthday cake. Sam could see the telltale red blush working its way up her little boy's face and her heart went out to him. The tears were threatening as well. She knew tears in this situation could be the end of whatever tentative status Johnny held with his peers. The cake was such a small thing, but right now it meant the world to her little boy. _

_So she swept to his side and stood solidly between her son and the rest of his class. Her eyes holding his own, she willed him to stay strong. And Johnny knew nothing bad would happen to him as long as mom was there. _

"_Let's take you to get cleaned up," Sam whispered in Johnny's ear. _

"_I want to go home," the little boy whispered in return, clearly overwhelmed and embarrassed._

_By then the teacher had brought the other students under control, even exhorting some of them to pleasantly participate in the clean-up. But the damage had been done._

_OoOoOo_

_That night, once Johnny had finally settled down to sleep, Sam reconsidered her options._

"_I won't let him go on like this," she said, as much to herself as to Jack who sat next to her on the sofa._

"_Are you talking about another school?" Jack questioned. "I thought we decided this place was good for him. He's got to learn to deal."_

"_I'm not talking about the school," Sam clarified. "I'm talking about the cerebral palsy."_

"_What then? More exercises, drugs, what?" Jack knew Sam was frustrated. He was frustrated himself but couldn't think of an alternative. _

"_We have other options," Sam said softly. "Options most parents don't have."_

"_We talked about those long ago, Sam," Jack said. "We decided against anything that would put him at risk, make him more different than he already is."_

"_I know we did," Sam admitted. "I said I'd learn to live with it, help Johnny learn to live with it. But the situation's changed. And it's only going to get worse. The older he gets, the more awkward things will be for him. If we didn't have a choice it would be one thing. But we do have a choice, Jack. I think I can make this better for him. I owe it to him to try."_

_Jack knew better than to stand in Samantha Carter's way once she'd made up her mind._

"_What do you want to do?"_

_OoOoOo_

_In the weeks that followed, the O'Neill household was in an uproar. Johnny insisted he didn't want to go to school and regularly put up a fuss about it. Sam's heart broke each and every time she had to persuade him to get on the bus in the morning. She and Jack both spent extra time with him and made arrangements for a private counselor to speak with him as well. _

_But Sam had bigger ideas. She wanted to try the Goa'uld healing device in hopes it would regenerate some of the damaged nerve cells in Johnny's brain. It was a long shot, but she had to try. Of course getting the device would be another matter altogether. It was hard enough to persuade Jack. But once convinced he'd told her he'd steal the alien contraption if it came right down to it. Consequences be damned__, he'd said._

"Remember how you were going to break into Area 51?" Sam asked.

Jack chuckled.

"I'd have done it you know," he said

"I know," Sam replied. "You'd do anything for Johnny. I'm glad you didn't have to."

"Me too," Jack agreed. "It's a good thing my lovely wife convinced the President."

TBC

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A/N: Next chapter largely from John's point of view.

Reviews greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3 Never Say Never

Chapter 3: Never Say Never.

_I can hardly believe I'm here,_ Johnny thought. _And to think I told Mom and Dad I'd never do the military thing. Here I am on stage at the Air Force Academy of all places. It goes to show, never say never._

John O'Neill PhD approached the dais with the officers and other officials who were part of the graduation ceremony. Over the suit jacket he'd worn for breakfast with the Dean, he'd donned the academic robes and colors of his most recent alma mater, Harvard. It wasn't a military uniform, but he thought it was fairly impressive.

With degrees from MIT and Harvard, John was well prepared for his career as a medical researcher. In fact, it seemed everything came naturally to him these days. Now waiting his turn as the main speaker, he sat impatiently while other dignitaries made their comments to the graduates and their families. He knew his mom and dad were in the sea of faces and within minutes he spotted them. They looked proud, almost as proud as they'd been at his graduations.

He remembered the day all of this started. His recall was startling in its intensity, nearly jolting him from his seat. Suddenly he felt once more what it was to be that small, frail child, the one his classmates mocked, the one his parents defended. Today, looking out at Jack and Sam, he was overwhelmed by the memory of what happened to change his life.

OoOoOo

_Only a few weeks after Johnny's sixth birthday, Sam came home with a package. As usual Johnny was curious and insisted on knowing what was in it. Sam hadn't kept him waiting long._

"_Come on, Mom," he said. "I want to see."_

"_You will Johnny," Sam said. "But first you and I have to talk."_

_Jack sat quietly in the background, content to let his wife handle this. _

"_Johnny," Sam began, "I brought home a very special gift that I'm going to use to help you get stronger."_

_Johnny's piercing brown eyes lit up at Sam's promise._

"_Really?" he asked. "Will I be able to run with the other kids?"_

"_I hope so," she said. Then barely missing a beat, she asked, "Can you keep a really big secret, Johnny?"_

"_Yep," he answered. "I'm great at keeping secrets."_

"_Ah," Sam replied, stuffing down her wonder at that particular statement._

"_Well, this has to stay a secret, just between the three of us." Then pulling the healing device from its protective satchel, she laid the three crystal hand device on the table between them._

"_It looks like a big diamond," the small boy observed, staring at the shiny object. The value of the crystal called a diamond had been impressed on him by his father at Sam's last birthday._

"_Well, it's at least as valuable," Sam said. "And only a very few people know about it. Now you're one of them.'_

"_I won't tell," Johnny promised sincerely. "What does it do?"_

_Sam turned around and looked at Jack. He nodded.  
_

"_Let's check it out," Sam replied. With that she palmed the device and waited a moment for the familiar glowing light to find its way from the crystals._

"_Wow!" Johnny exclaimed. "How's it doing that?"_

_Sam smiled and knew that Jack was likely grinning behind her. Their little boy was always the epitome of curiosity. The words "why" and "how" seemed to be his favorites. Jack frequently reminded her that Johnny sounded just like his mother on many occasions._

_Sam removed the device from her hand for a moment._

"_No one is really sure about that Johnny," she said honestly enough. Despite years of testing at Area 51, backward engineering the Goa'uld device had been impossible. Attempts to have others use the device, without benefit of a protein marker, had been ineffective. So frustrating had the effort been that the device was basically mothballed for the past three years. It had been rescued from a top secret storage closet when Sam persuaded the President to let her see if it could help Johnny._

"_We think it focuses mental energy from the operator," Sam continued. "So I'm going to put it on and think really hard how much I want you to be stronger. And we'll see what happens. Is that alright with you?"_

_The little boy solemnly nodded. Of course he'd trust his mom to do most anything. With rapt attention Johnny watched while at Sam's concentrated coaxing a soothing yellow light streamed from the hand device. Slowly she directed the glowing beam over Johnny's head and neck, then down his back. Truth be told, Sam had little idea of the specific ways in which this might work, but she'd seen it work miracles before, in her own hand._

_Within minutes, Johnny started to wiggle around, seemingly bored with this new activity. Sam stopped the beam, more from her own fatigue than anything else. Jack walked over to be sure she was okay._

"_How do you feel," Jack asked, unsure who he was the most concerned for at the moment._

_Sam simply nodded that she was fine. Johnny smiled and was considerably more vocal in his description._

"_That was fun," he said. "Can we do it again?"_

"_Not for awhile," Sam said, determined to assess what if any difference it was making before going further. "How's your arm?"_

_Instead of answering, Johnny reached over, picked up the hand device, and slipped it on his palm. _

_And then the most amazing thing happened._

_The device glowed. Both Jack and Sam watched, speechless as their child began to direct the beam over his left arm, then his left leg. Any worry they had about his safety or the effect of the beam fell away as he smiled and giggled. _

"_That tickles," Johnny said. "I can make it work too, Mommy."_

_Indeed he could. Although Johnny was born without naquadah in his system, he was able to make the Goa'uld device function. It would take years before the O'Neills began to realize how that was possible. But by the end of that very afternoon, they knew their son was getting stronger._

_OoOoOo_

_Yep, that's how this whole adventure started, _Johnny thought_. Mom had no idea how obsessed I'd be with that hand device. Sure it healed me, regenerated damaged nerve cells and made me stronger, but it was so much more. Even then, the little kid I was knew that. And I had to figure it out, had to discover how it worked. Make it work for other kids._

_I couldn't believe mom and all her friends hadn't unraveled its secrets. What's more, I couldn't understand why she wouldn't let me take it to help my friends, the ones who had problems like mine. It was a long time before I really got the meaning of Top Secret. And Mom wasn't budging. So I persuaded her to do the next best thing, tell me everything she knew about the alien artifact that changed my life. _

_As I suspected, Mom knew a lot. They say I'm a genius, what with two PhDs and all, but Mom, she's really brilliant. Besides, it's about motivation. I wanted to know everything I needed to know to recreate that device and make it work for people. And by the time I was done harassing Mom she felt the same. We did whatever it took. She says it was me, but she's wrong. Without her and Dad, I couldn't have done any of it.  
_

_In the long run, backward engineering the device and making it work was easier than it seemed. Straightforward, really; all we needed were the correct crystals and a schooled ability to focus the natural mental energy all human beings have within them. Looking back we realized the only reason I could make it work at the age of five was that I'd inherited the Ancient gene from my father. In the long run, it turned out it was an Ancient device after all; yet another piece of technology scavenged by the Goa'uld.  
_

John was shaken from his silent reverie by the sound of his name spoken by the Dean of Students. He was being introduced. It was finally his turn to speak. His audience would want to hear about ground breaking technique of Regenerative Touch from the man who had revolutionized the treatment of all forms of neurological illness. As always, John was humbled by the degree of deferential respect he was shown by audiences such as this one. Yes, what he'd accomplished was important. But all that mattered to him was helping people who were suffering. That was why he'd started the Foundation, why he'd refused to profit from his discovery.

And now that the Stargate program had been made public, there was more for him to do. These were exciting times.

TBC

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A/N: Only one more chapter. Thank you for reading and reviewing. It's been great hearing from you.


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